Decision ‘08

Cindy Sheehan: The 2005 Jackass of the Year

The first Jackass of the Year, Micheal Moore, was an easy pick. He neatly symbolized the ‘progressive’ strain of politics that proved so fatal to the Democrats’ hopes for regaining the White House, and it certainly didn’t hurt that he is a pompous serial liar and a complete moral hypocrite.

This year’s pick is more problematic. As I stated when I awarded her the 39th Weekly Jackass prize:

I take no pleasure at all in awarding this one, because there’s nothing funny about a grieving mother. Ask yourself this, though: if Cindy Sheehan had not lost her son, would you even hesitate to condemn her actions?

Indeed, it is more as a symbol than a person that Sheehan is our yearly honoree.

We praise the valor of her son, who died serving his country; we mourn at the heartbreak of this and so many hundreds and thousands of grieving mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, for war is an awful business and never something to be glorified; and we honor her truly all-American right to dissent from the policies of her President and, indeed, protest (almost) at his door.

Sheehan was more than just another protestor, though; she was symbolic of this year in much the same way that Moore was symbolic of 2004: she signified a childish thrashing out at the harshness of life; in her case, it is, of course, understandable (we can only imagine her pain), but that’s not the case with the vast majority of the progressive hordes who adopted her as a one-woman counterpoint to a war they didn’t support and a President they hated.

Two things, among the many that symbolize this world view, concern me here: one, the incoherence of the ‘Sheehan’ position, and two, the adoption of the hard Left’s favorite tool, that of moral equivalence. Thus, we were treated to such asininities as the following from Maureen Dowd: “The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.” Yes, well, as Christopher Hitchens pointed out at the time, what if a pro-war parent of a slain soldier squares off against an anti-war parent? Whose absolute moral authority trumps whom?

And what was the message being conveyed with such absolute moral authority? That Casey Sheehan died for Israel?

Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel.

That any war carried out by the U.S., including the one in Afghanistan, is illegitimate by definition?

MATTHEWS: Can I ask you a tough question? A very tough question.

SHEEHAN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: All right. If your son had been killed in Afghanistan, would you have a different feeling?

SHEEHAN: I don’t think so, Chris, because I believe that Afghanistan is almost the same thing. We’re fighting terrorism. Or terrorists, we’re saying. But they’re not contained in a country. This is an ideology and not an enemy. And we know that Iraq, Iraq had no terrorism. They were no threat to the United States of America.

MATTHEWS: But Afghanistan was harboring, the Taliban was harboring al-Qaida which is the group that attacked us on 9/11.

SHEEHAN: Well then we should have gone after al-Qaida and maybe not after the country of Afghanistan.

MATTHEWS: But that’s where they were being harbored. That’s where they were headquartered. Shouldn’t we go after their headquarters? Doesn’t that make sense?

SHEEHAN: Well, but there were a lot of innocent people killed in that invasion, too. … But I’m seeing that we’re sending our ground troops in to invade countries where the entire country wasn’t the problem. Especially Iraq. Iraq was no problem. And why do we send in invading armies to march into Afghanistan when we’re looking for a select group of people in that country?

So I believe that our troops should be brought home out of both places where we’re obviously not having any success in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and that’s who they told us was responsible for 9/11.

All war is wrong, even the Second World War?

Sheehan is now a complete pacifist. In her view, no war – not the second world war, nor the toppling of the Taliban – is worth spilling one drop of human blood. The name Sheehan, she says, is Irish for peace, and she takes her pacifist beliefs so devoutly that she says she doesn’t even “hate” Bush (although, she adds slyly, she certainly believes that there is evil in the world). “Camp Casey showed that there is way more good in the world than evil. And we know that evil can never win. Evil never beats good.”

Well, with that last quote, the game is up; we clearly have a person here who suffers from great intellectual confusion or a serious lack of historical knowledge; the equivalence of the Bush Administration with evil, the lack of concern over Saddam’s victims or the victims of the Nazi holocaust, not to mention the oppressed women of Afghanistan - well, it’s staggering.

And yet, Bush critics latched onto this pathetic, grieving mother as if she was Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. In a remarkably mistaken column of August 21sth, Frank Rich, the deplorable king of conspiracy, went so far as to say the war effort was singlehandedly undermined by Sheehan:

When Mr. Bush’s motorcade left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far. The strategy of fighting a war without shared national sacrifice has at last backfired, just as the strategy of Swift Boating the war’s critics has reached its Waterloo before Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury in Washington. The 24/7 cable and Web attack dogs can keep on sliming Cindy Sheehan. The president can keep trying to ration the photos of flag-draped caskets. But this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq.

Astonishing how absolutely nothing in the preceding paragraph has come to pass.

This year’s prize, then, is one that needs to be shared with those who exploited Sheehan for political gain, who used her as a symbol, while never asking what the consequences of her newfound complete pacifism would be. I close with the words of, again, Christopher Hitchens:

Some have perhaps been drawn to “Camp Casey” out of reverence for life. Their demand, however, is an immediate coalition withdrawal from Iraq. Have they seriously asked themselves how humane the consequences of that would be? The news of a pullout would put a wolfish grin on the faces of the “al-Qaida in Mesopotamia” brigade, as Mr. Zarqawi’s force has named itself in order to resolve all doubt. Every effort would be made to detonate every available car-bomb and mine, so as to claim the withdrawal of coalition forces as a military victory for jihad. I can quite understand Ms. Sheehan’s misery at the thought of her son being killed on some desolate road. But will she be on hand to console the parents whose sons are shot in the back while being ordered to surrender and withdraw?

I hope I don’t insult the intelligent readers of this magazine if I point out what the consequences of such a capitulation would be for the people of Iraq. Paint your own mental picture of a country that was already almost beyond rescue in 2003, as it is handed back to an alliance of homicidal Baathists and Bin-Ladenists. Comfort yourself, if that’s the way you think, with the idea that such people are only nasty because Bush made them so. Intone the Sheehan mantra—repeated this very week—that terrorism is no problem because after all Bush is the leading terrorist in the world. See if that cheers you up. Try it on your friends. Live with it, if you are ready to live with the consequences of what you desire.

This is an argument, about a real war, that deserves moral seriousness on all sides. Flippancy and light-mindedness have no place. Cindy Sheehan’s cheerleader Michael Moore has compared the “insurgents” in Iraq to the American minutemen and Founding Fathers. Do I taunt him for not volunteering to fight himself in such a noble cause? Of course I do not. That would be a low and sly blow. Do I say that he is spouting fascistic nonsense? Of course I do. Is Cindy Sheehan exempt from any verdict on her wacko opinions because of her bereavement? I would say that she is not. Has she been led into a false position by eager cynics who have sacrificed nothing and who would happily surrender unconditionally to the worst enemy that currently faces civilization? That’s for her to clarify.

Sheehan’s grief is real and tragic, yet so are the results of totalitarian rule, and in the cruel calculus of war, the death of Casey Sheehan and his fellow soldiers has allowed the sweet breath of freedom for millions more.

21 Responses to “Cindy Sheehan: The 2005 Jackass of the Year”

1 dmac Says:
December 31st, 2005 at 3:27 pm
What the press failed to mention was that Ms. Sheehan was quite a vitriolic activist long before her son was killed in Iraq, and that she made long and tiresome rants against the evil “Joos” and the awful things they were doing to the saintly Palestinians. For evidence, look up some of her present screechings that have appeared in the Huff ‘N Puff.

Also - her son argued with her before, during, and after his first deployment to Iraq - the tour in which he won the Bronze star for his actions in combat. His hitch in Iraq thus satisfied, he nevertheless volunteered to go back to the same combat zone he had previously been under fire in - none of those facts were allowed into the dominant theme that was trotted out endlessly for us.

A sad and pathetic figure, no question.
2 Muffin the cat Says:
December 31st, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Excellent choice for this year’s award. Muffin awards her esteemed Paw Print of Approval to this selection. Well written article.

It seems that she has been out of the limelight the past few months. Ditto for MM, the 2004 winner.
3 Mark Says:
December 31st, 2005 at 5:56 pm
The Paw Print of Approval? Wow, I’m honored…
4 DG Says:
December 31st, 2005 at 6:13 pm
Haven’t heard from Cindy in a while. She must have gone back on the Zoloft. While I like your choice, I think you should give honorable mention to Howard Dean…..YeeeeeHaaaaaa! He has almost singlehandedly assured the return of a Republican Congress next year. Maybe a group award for the Dem leadership. Rambling Nancy Skeletor Pelosi and Harry Clueless Reid were priceless this past year.
5 Martha Says:
December 31st, 2005 at 9:01 pm
Mark, a good choice. Well written and insights to the type person she is and also sympathetic to her loss.
6 Atlas Shrugs Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 3:47 am
NOTABLE QUOTES 2005

December 31, 2005, New York Post — For 18 years, the Media Research Center has been compiling its list of notable quotables. The quotes, from prominent members of the mainstream news media, provide a clear window into the leftist mindset
7 Joe Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 6:52 am
Isn’t it a bit unseemly to call her a “jackass”? Her son died fighting for the US, afterall. Do you really think he would appreciate someone calling his mother a jackass? Very poor taste.
8 Jack Hamilton Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 8:06 am
Joe
At least it’s better than calling her The Bitch in the Ditch. As a wounded veteran of the vietnam war and some one thats has seen morethan my share of death! I felt very sorry for Cindy Sheehan. But Cindy has went beyond the pale and by her own actions have turned that empathy that was held by many for her into contempt. Her anti semetic comments, her own very well displayed vile hatred coupled with her insane positions such as calling the killers of her on son freedom fighters. Supporting in spirit those that purposely kill women and children and would reenslave millions of people have worked to marginalize this I believe mentally ill woman. No Cindy is receiving what she well deserves. The sad part is the really rough days are still ahead for her. When all the attention that she so desperately craves is gone completely and she is just left with herself and her sickness it wll be worse.
9 Tyranno Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 10:20 am
Cindy sheehan is the classic definition of a “useful idiot,” and if you have heard her speak you know it is unfortunately true. She is a convenient product for as long as she lasts, manufactured and maintained by the MSM. But, beyond her no doubt immeasurable grief, she is obviously a boob.
I watched her get asked a substantive question at the National Press Club interview and with a ‘deer in the headlights’ fear in her eyes starting to spread across her face she struggled to comprehend it and stumbled embarrassingly in her response. Quickly her handlers rushed up and hustled her off stage and ended the interview immediately.

She is the Ryan White of the Hate/ Blame America first crowd. How do disagree with a little boy who has AIDS? How do you disagree with a grieving mother?? Ms. Sheehan is only their most recent benign facade/ face forward who is being used to hide the real political agendas of freakishly extreme and wholey unsympathetic group(s).
No one is suppose to question her motives or associations, or her bizarre and ignorant statements because . . . well, no one has really explained that one beyond the “grieving mother” caveat. But then Ms. Sheehan has chosen to put her business in the streets and for me has willfully forsaken all deference or good manners that are normally accorded a grieving parent.
She has certainly not displayed either good manners or even a modicum of deference towards anyone who disagrees with her political agends, so she can not expect anything but to be treated in the same manner.

Having buried several friends over this last year I defer to no one in understanding the cost of what is being attempted in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cindy Sheehan is a pathetic boob being used by an abhorrent slice of the
“progressive left” who will suck her blood until she is no longer useful and then discard her in that ditch in Texas for, oh I don’t know, it’s a continuously changing cavalcade of faces, perhaps . . . Jane Fonda’s upcoming “2005 or 06 Anti-War Bus Tour with the Stars?” Perhaps Sen Murtha will not regain control of his senses? michael moore has another movie coming out . . . Or she will be tossed over for whoever the next simple minded, emotionally wounded, unfortunate and useful, Mom or wife boob to come along is.

Ms. Sheehan deserves our legitimate contempt right now because she isn’t a grieving mother, she is a practicing political operative spewing the breadth and depth of the PARTY line. But Ms Sheehan, who has alienated her husband and her entire family in this process, will require our pity and our support once she discovers her new found “buddies” in the progressive publicity caravan have squeezed the last drop of usefulness out of her and moved on . . . . leaving her to realize that she isn’t a real movie star, there is no check in the mail… and that taste in her mouth . . . ???

Tyranno
10 Mark Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 10:26 am
Joe, I was at pains to underscore my appreciation for the sacrifice of her son; of all the people who have lost loved ones in war, are there no jackasses among them?

I think I was more than fair and compassionate in explaining my pick.

This is one reason I’m discontinuing this feature (at least on a regular basis); many people (sadly, including yourself, apparently, in this instance) will ignore the substance of what I’ve said and focus on the headline.
11 dmac Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 11:34 am
Joe, please actually read some of the insane rantings that this woman has spewed out of her mouth over the past year before you call someone on using a name to describe her as inappropriate.

Calling her a jackass is literally nothing compared to the bile she’s called others, particularly with regards to our armed forces. She’s the poster girl for unhinged hate and cant, and it’s way too late to use the canard of a grieving mother to excuse her deplorable behaviour.
12 Steve Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 11:47 am
It doesn’t seem a bit unseemly to call her a jackass at all because she is abhorently capitalizing on her son’s sacrifice to further her own political agenda. She does not truly honor nor understand, for that matter, her own son. Let me clue you in to the psyche of the average troop in combat: regardless of the reasons he VOLUNTEERED for service, fully knowing the hazards of his chosen profession, when those rounds start cracking by his head and RPGs start to explode, it’s not about mom, or apple pie, or the flag. It’s about the man to his left and to his right. Nothing else matters.

What would Casey think? I cannot speak for the dead, but I can say this: I would haunt my mother if she were to do what Cindy Sheehan has done if it had been me coming back in a flag draped coffin from Somalia instead of my team leader.
13 Joe Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 4:24 pm
I am well aware of some of her crazier statements. I did not ignore what you wrote and focus only on the headline.

But her son died fighting a war she opposed, and that must have been a huge psychological shock to her. I have no problems when you point out some of her fanatical statements. But I do think it is in very poor taste to call her a “jackass”. I’ll leave it at that.
14 dmac Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 4:38 pm
I guess for those on the GOP side of things, everyone is supposed to follow the Marquis de Queensbury rules regarding political discourse, while those on the left are allowed to call BushHitlerHalliburtonBloodForOilChimpFacedMoron,etc. Quite a double standard, eh?
15 Louisiana Libertarian » Blog Archive » RINO Sightings: New Year’s Edition Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 10:33 pm
[…] Mark at Decision ‘08 names his 2005 Jackass of the Year. […]
16 Kevin W Says:
January 2nd, 2006 at 6:44 pm
I don’t think I could have made a better decision for Jackass of the Year.. Cindy Sheehan has no sense or reason in her views. Usually, I can at least understand the arguments of anti-war ideologues. But Sheehans a different story. She’s not a good debator at all. She basically makes no sense. I’m glad she heads the anti-war league… simply because shes so bad at being persuasive.
17 docdave Says:
January 2nd, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Hate is an emotion that blinds one from reason. Add grief to hate and you have a combination of emotions that can sorely test ones sanity. This is not an excuse fpr Cindys behavior but maybe a reason. Her current path can eventually lead her to despair and depression. Pity her, pray for her salvation and curse the evil that has led her astray.
18 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » None Dare Call It Treason? (Part Two) Says:
January 8th, 2006 at 10:19 am
[…] Cindy Sheehan, comparing George W. Bush to Osbama bin Laden: “I would say 30,000 more or less have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis,” said George on December 12, 2005. Even if one accepts this very low guess-ti-mate by George, his policies have been responsible for ten times the 3000 deaths on September 11, 2001. By his own admission, he is ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was. Let’s quit mincing words - Sheehan hides behind the death of her son, but it won’t work. That’s a foul accusation, and I feel more justified than ever in giving her the Jackass of the Year… […]
19 a reader Says:
January 8th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
It may not be fair to focus on Sheehan, because she seems more a useful idiot than someone who knows what she’s doing.

Fenton Communications handled the media campaign, and a co-owner of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream handled the financial end: http://www.google.com/search?q=sheehan+fenton+cohen

It would be useful to discover which Democrats or newspapers knew of the campaign beforehand.
20 RetiredNavy Says:
January 9th, 2006 at 10:53 am
I don’t think she ever was what most of us that are parents would consider a good mother. I have to believe his father and siblings instilled the goodness in him in spite of his mother. This is the woman that claims to know he was a 24 year old virgin and proclaims it to the world as fact….a grown man that was engaged to be married and had served enough time in the military to re-enlist and volunteer for a war. Even if it were true, what “loving” mother would share this with the world. This is the mother who posed for a photo-op laying on his grave like a commercial for her speaking tour (@30K$ a pop). This is a woman that calls her son’s killers “freedom fighters”. So how in God’s name could she have ever cared in a loving way for her son. My conclusion is that she didn’t, not now, not ever. She saw an opportunity to gain attention and money from his death and grabbed it. She is vile, disgusting and an appropriate selection for “Jackass of the Year”, if not worse.
21 Art Says:
December 6th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
I nominate joe as Weekly Jack Ass